Yossi Kuperwasser, a retired Israeli brigadier general, leads the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. He is a former head of the research division of the Israel Defense Forces’ military intelligence directorate and director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
Tributes continue to pour in for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly this week, highlighting his many accomplishments and steadfast values during a lifetime of public service. In addition to being a great American, he was no doubt a great friend of Israel.
While mourning him, I am deeply grateful for his significant and lasting contribution as the author and sponsor of the Taylor Force Act, which bars U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as long as it continues to allot payments to convicted terrorists or their surviving family members. This law has raised awareness about the PA’s sponsorship of terror and cultivation of radicalism, and has started to slowly change the world's attitude toward supporting a leadership that rewards terror and destruction.
None of this would have happened without Senator Graham.
Just today I was driving past Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, where Force, a 29-year-old American military veteran from Texas on a trip to Israel as part of his MBA program at Vanderbilt University, was murdered by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in 2016.
As has become common practice, Palestinian Arab leaders lauded the killer, and the PA began paying his family a monthly stipend. Rightfully outraged by this practice, Force’s family and dozens of other Americans who had lost loved ones to Palestinian Arab terror began to work with Graham and other legislators to stop these payments. It was a mission that Graham took seriously.
“These rewards for terrorist attacks are inconsistent with American values. They are inconsistent with decency, and they are certainly inconsistent with peace," Graham said during the 2018 passage of the bipartisan bill, which was also publicly supported by Force’s family and pro-Israel activist Sander Gerber. It took nearly two years of work before the bill reached Congress, and ultimately passed, showing Graham’s dedication and eagerness to work across party lines when values overlapped. Graham called it “one of the most significant pieces of legislation I’ve been involved with."
During his first term, the Trump Administration froze aid to the PA upon the passing of the Taylor Force Act. While there have also been challenges in enforcing this law, with the Biden Administration continuing to send aid to the Palestinian Authority, and ongoing “pay for slay," practices, just last month, the U.S. State Department committed in court to abide by the law for the next 10 years.
Significantly, the European Union is also calling for the PA to end the practice of financially rewarding terror. In 2025 alone, the PA spent $156 million paying stipends to families of convicted terrorists, according to a U.S. State Department report. PA Finance Minister Estephan Salameh also reaffirmed earlier this year that the practice continues.
As Graham made so clear, such payments must stop. Any government that distributes money, a large part of it derived from foreign aid, to those who have killed innocent civilians, cannot be trusted to govern in the pursuit of peace--much less to have an independent state.
Graham worked tirelessly to do the right thing, and to bring dignity and honor to terror victims like Taylor Force and his family. As others continue this crucial work, they are keeping alive not just Graham’s personal legacy, but the values he stood for on the international stage; the values that are essential to one day creating a peaceful and prosperous Middle East. May his memory be blessed.